Impact of Institutional Support on First-Year Undergraduate Students’ Cybersecurity Compliance Behaviour

The purpose of this study was to comprehend from the behavioural perspective, how the formation of habits manifest in the cybersecurity compliance behaviour of first-year undergraduate students in an institution of higher education. The authors proposed a model based on the formation of habits theory and the theory of planned behaviour that institutional support, self-efficacy, response efficacy and will influence compliance intention. Through a structured online survey questionnaire, 360 first-year undergraduate students from one South African institution of higher education responded. The results from the empirical investigation and analysis through PLS-SEM demonstrate that institutional support, cybersecurity self-efficacy and will influence first-year students’ cybersecurity compliance intention. However, response efficacy demonstrated no influence on students’ compliance behaviour. Furthermore, results revealed no moderation of students’ ICT use experience, age and gender in the relationships. Moreover, self-efficacy and will demonstrate partial mediation effects on the relationship between institutional support initiatives and cybersecurity compliance behaviour. However, response efficacy had no mediation effect on the relationship. This paper promotes cybersecurity compliance behaviour by improving the comprehension of the impact of different habit formation variables on cybersecurity compliance behaviour in the context of first-year university students.